I have always loved the design work created for Olivetti. The colourful midcentury designs by Italian designer Giovanni Pintori, the minimal typographic poster by Swiss designer Walter Ballmer and my personal favourite the 1959 poster for Olivetti designed by Herbert Bayer. I recently found out Triest Verlag released a new book, Visual identity and branding at Olivetti which contains further work by Xanti Schawinsky, Renato Zveteremich, Ettore Sottsass, Hans von Klier, Egidio Bonfante and Walter Ballmer.

From time to time members of the Graphic Design History group and others have asked for a number of recommendations for books related to design history, theory and specific areas of graphic design. This is the first of a series of articles from educators, designers and archivists featuring book recommendations and resources.